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What we think of when we think of Yankee fans

I think the major reason I no longer harbor any particular distaste toward the Yankees — besides a general preference for underdogs — is that I’m no longer in high school and so no longer need to regularly interact with people like this guy:

The Yankee fans I deal with now tend to be people more like Alex Belth, a guy reasonable enough to recognize that he is lucky to root for a team with the resources to contend every year, who does so without the obnoxious sense of entitlement too frequently demonstrated by people like the fellow seen here.

I know plenty of Yankee fans like that and I suspect they might actually make up more of the actual fanbase than we assume; we merely associate Yankee fandom with people like this guy because of confirmation bias, and because they express their allegiance in a much more vocal and detestable fashion than the Yankee fans smart enough to realize that not everyone gets to root for a perpetual winner.

That GIF (taken from Scratchbomb) is mesmerizing. I could watch this guy for hours.

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17 thoughts on “What we think of when we think of Yankee fans”

Here’s my question: Do we really need right/left field umpires in the postseason?

I’m sure it’s confirmation bias or whatever, but I can’t think of a single instance when I’ve thought, “God, I’m glad we have that guy down the line.” But I can think of about 5 instances in which they’ve made blatantly terrible calls that were obvious to the naked eye (Maier, Phil Cuzzi last year, Berkman’s homer last night, etc).

Ted, take the MetroNorth into Grand Central on the morning of a ticket tape parade, and I guarantee you that your distaste will resurface for good.

It seems to me that there are two types of Yankee fans — (1) real baseball fans who happen to be Yankee fans. These are the reasonable fans who recognize how fortunate they are and with whom rational baseball discussions can be had; and (2) Yankee fans whose interest in baseball is limited to the Yankees and are Yankee fans simply because they have some emotional need to affiliate themselves with a perceived winner. These are the insufferable, obnoxious fools who give Yankee fans a bad name — the guys who will argue with a straight face that Melkey Canbera is better than Carlos Beltran, or that Derek Jeter is a great defensive shortstop, or that Paul O’Neill belongs in the HOF, or that the Royals could spend as much on payroll as the Yankees if their owner was simply willing to invest in his team like the generous and benevolent George Steinbrenner.

Unfortunately, it seems that the latter group outweighs the former these days.

Yea I know alot of Yankee fans like that. Unfortunatly for me, most of the ones I encounter fall into your category #2. These fans think everyone on the Yankees is the greatest player. Like the Andy Petite HOF argument. The guy is not a HOFer. Hes a very good pitcher who racked up a ton of wins in the regualr and post season by playing on a dominant team. Nothing about Andy Petites numbers or stats suggest he should be anywhere near the HOF except him win total, which is a byproduct of the teams he was on.

Last fall a few days after the Yanks won the series I was golfing with my buddy who is a Yanks fan, and we were paired up with 2 other random Yanks fans (I know, I almost jumped off a cliff). And the conversation quickly turned to how awesome the win was and how it was “such a long time comming” for the Yankss to win. I was like are you F-in kidding me? A long time comming???

Last November 6th, my normally-half-empty 6 train from the Bronx was packed with navy-bedecked Westchester paradegoers loudly shouting to each other across the car, a guy in a coordinated red (!) Yankee windbreaker and sticker-still-on-it cap starting chants so loud it scared the toddlers on the train, and a hilarious train conductor who made the same “last stop for Met fans” joke at EVERY stop for about 12 stops.

My boss’ boss stopped by my office twice to make smarmy gloating comments afterward. On the day that his team was celebrating, he stopped by a subordinate Mets fan’s office to gloat, as did several colleagues. And I work for a nonprofit/charity organization.

These guys are out there. They’re all around me, and whether or not you realize it, they’re all around you. And they’re just waiting for a f*cking parade. It may make me seem petty– or it may just make me petty– but I’m more than a little happy that they’re anxious and/or sad this afternoon.

Baseball is one of the great loves of my life. And I just console myself with the fact that those people don’t really get to know that love. They can’t. You’ve got to know the pain to really feel baseball (witness Giamatti: “it’s designed to break your heart”). And going a few years without a championship just doesn’t count.

Is the title of this a mild Raymond Carver reference?
The more I watch that gif, the more I notice the other people in the background, particularly the guy in the flat-cap politely clapping who looks like he should be sat somewhere else.

I’m 25 years old so most of my peers were forming their opinions on baseball as the Yankees were set to go on their five year run. How I dealt with puberty and the Yankee’s 3-peat without my parents putting me on anti-depressants is a miracle.

My general rule of thumb with Yankee fans is to see if they came from a baseball family, if they were raised Yankee fans by parents who stayed true through the 80s then they’re usually more bearable.

As for the other group, here’s a conversation (verbatim) I had with my female coworker during the playoffs last year; this woman is the epitome of group 2.

Woman: Did you watch the game last night?
Pablo: (already irritated)No.
W: Yea, I turned it off. It was boring.
P: Your team is in the playoffs and you’re bored?
W: Well yea, the games take too long and you don’t know if they’re going to win…
P: Wait, so you only watch if you think they’re deffinatly going to win?
W: Well I don’t know…
P: I have to go to the bathroom

Yankee fans “who stayed true through the 80’s” Please don’t fall for that canard from Yankee “fans” trying to prove their legitimacy. An argument can be made that all Yankee fans are front-runners in some respect because their loyalty has never been tested. The Yankees have not been bad for more than a couple of years at a time since before Babe Ruth.

The truth is that the Yankees had the best record in baseball in the 80’s. And those awful years included rosters loaded with all-stars and future HOF’ers such as Mattingly, Guidry, Righetti, Winfield, Ricky Henderson, Don Baylor, Jack Clark, Willie Randolph…

Believe me, I’m 42, there were plenty of insufferable and obnoxious Yankee fans back in the 80’s, just not as many as today. Hell, I remember Yankee fans in the late 80’s insisting that Mike Pagliarulo was better than HoJo.

I’m by no means handing out purple hearts for Yankee fans who suffered a decade w/o a title (though I didn’t know that best record factoid), I just think it makes it more respectable if Yankee fandom was handed down from genearation to generation. If frontrunning runs in someone elses family the way self-inflicted torture runs in mine then I understand it more than someone who one day woke up and said “I’m going with the Yankees”.

You’re absolutely right — there is a distinction. I met my wife in the early 90’s. At that time, her siblings and in-laws were mostly Mets fans. Now they are mostly Yankee fans, including their subsequently born children.

But I just hate it when Yankee “fans” take pride in suffering through a decade when they had the best record in baseball.

i hate obnoxious yankees fans as much as the next guy but that display ahs to be appreciated on an artistic level removed from subjective objection to content. its the Triumph of the Will for our generation, really.

Unfortunately, this version of the animated GIF somewhat cuts off the ginormous porker behind him mouthing “F*** YOU! F*** YOU!” to Nelson Cruz, before he waddles back to the concession stands to get 5 more orders of nachos.